On The Road With Pond And Doctopus Part Two

I forgot to mention that after the Boston show, a girl in the front row rushed the stage with a sign she must’ve stolen from street named Pond Circle. Nick Allbrook had one foot off the stage when he stopped, and the crowd begun a “TAKE THE SIGN” chant. He did, and the next night it was attached to the front of Jamie Terry’s synthesizer setup.

At the hotel in Framingham just outside of Boston, we’re greeted with the most essential American perceptions of Australia by our hotel clerk. “I gotta ask, does the water really run the other way?” He asks the question with a curious quiver in his voice, like it’s the most fascinating concept he’s ever heard of. “Yes,” we answer, and his world is restored to order. We joke that that’s the only thing to see in Australia, and he says he’d like to go someday so he can see kangaroo boxing.

The next day we make a pit stop at a wholesome coffee house for breakfast before heading south to back to New York. For a trio of guys who play straight-forward garage rock, the Doctopus boys have an eclectic taste in music: our return journey is scored by a Hendrix/Wu Tang Clan mashup, more Ween, an array of bizarre psych, some funk, and Ace Frehley’s New York Groove once the big city is in site. Also on the speakers: the legendary, short lived rap collective The Good Boys, featuring Doctopus’ Steve and Jeremy alongside an array of super friends spitting the most hilarious and obscene raps I’ve ever heard. In the most bizarre case of things coming full circle, Pond actually opened for The Good Boys at a notorious garage show at Dada Records in East Perth circa 2009. Half a decade later, it’s a quasi-reunion on the other side of the world. Pulling into the city, we’re next to two prison vans. Printed on back: NEW YORK’S BOLDEST. STAY BACK.

"I hope you like my Australian 6-pack."

The Bowery Ballroom in lower Manhattan is the exact kind of space we need in Perth, like a mini Astor Theatre with pub vibe, or maybe Metro City but less scummy and architecturally insulting. Doctopus weren’t the only support on this show – opening proceedings was ex-Children Collide frontman Johnny Mackay as Fascinator, an electro-drone mishmash with the visual aesthetic of a cyberpunk Eyes Wide Shut.

Being a New York show, everything happens late; Doctopus start after 10pm to a crowd of maybe 150 punters. This time, they’re much more on point, although Steve’s vocals are starting to strain. He goes shirtless mid-set, telling the audience, “I hope you like my Australian 6-pack.” They win over much faster this time, and Doctopus play warped kind of garage-psych-whatever that’s got a strong enough beat to be danceable (thanks to John Lekias’ super-tight drumming) and enough silliness and punk energy to rock out to. Pond are just as good, emitting a Bowie-esque sexuality with every note, and striking that same subtle balance of danceable and a headbang-ready.

Pic by Ben Hayes

As we’re leaving the hotel in SoHo the next day and praising Ben for his driving prowess, we accidentally rear end a cab. There’s a tension and sense of dread and hilarity that hangs in the air for two seconds as we try to figure out what the fuck to do: we’re blocking traffic in a busy single lane, we’re dirt poor and we’ve just busted the front of our rental car and the back of some poor cabbie’s tail lights, and the damage looks pretty bad. We pull over and Ben exits to speak to the driver, a Middle Eastern guy in his 50s, and from what I can tell in the backseat things are under control. I see Ben pass the guy a wad of cash and we move on. “I don’t want to have to deal with this,” he told Ben. “Just give me $70 and that will be fine.” He’s probably insured and makes a small profit from little prangs. This country works in mysterious ways.

If the road to Boston is the beautiful autumnal landscape Hollywood promised, the road to Philadelphia is the shit-boring assault of grey highways that play the background in your average road movie. Not that highways have an obligation to be pretty – I mean, they’re highways – but it makes for a hell of a juxtaposition. Our soundtrack for the 2+ hour journey is Michael Jackson. Our visual track, beyond the nondescript bitumen and occasional correctional facility, is an array of billboards that display this country’s diversity in the most American way possible. In a quarter-mile stretch we’re treated to a cheap 1800 lawyer; an anti-evolution ad with the traditional primate-becoming-bipedal image crossed out next to big bold text that reads ON THE FIRST DAY, GOD CREATED; a billboard for a strip club; and an from Pro-Life For America. I love the USA.

A girl from Philadelphia who seems bitter about the fact that she works paycheck to paycheck and spends a good hour hitting on both Steve and Shiny Joe from Pond.

The venue tonight is an intimate upstairs bar attached to a restaurant with maybe a quarter the capacity of the Bowery. The floor space is maybe three times the size of the cramped stage with a balcony above. Before the show the fanatics are out in full force: a young Hispanic guy fawns over Nick, and later he’ll get really drunk and almost fall over the balcony’s low rails. A girl brings Nick a heavy gourmet vegan ice cream which he accepts graciously, and hours later, the bassist for the opening band – a Georgia rock trio named Chief Scout – will skull the melted contents. He didn’t even get a headache.

Doctopus play their best set so far, and this kind of small, sweaty venue – like somewhere between Mojos and The Bird with a balcony – is where they excel. It’s also great to see Pond in a venue this tight-knit, something that’s virtually impossible to do in Australia given their homeland popularity. Again, those riffs from the latter part of ‘Whatever Happened To The Million Head Collide’ are so much sweeter each time. I was a casual Pond fan before this tour; midway through I’ve become a devotee.

Jeremy gets real drunk – in fact, everyone does – but Jeremy especially, thanks to the assistance of a couple of Australian dudes who’ve been travelling around America for the last two months, who spend most of the evening plying Jeremy full of drinks. One of them looks like he’s moments away from making out with Jeremy for the entire night. We hang outside the venue into the early hours thanks to motley crew of characters loitering long after the end of Pond’s set. There are two Philadelphia skinheads (racist inclinations not determined) who look like they could be carrying switchblades; a 30-something hippie woman who spends hours filming everything on her iPhone; a girl from Philadelphia who seems bitter about the fact that she works paycheck to paycheck and spends a good hour hitting on both Steve and Shiny Joe from Pond, and a dozen other stragglers. We finally depart at 2.30, more Good Boys on the stereo, and I realize this is what you do on the road: you talk shit with each other, you play shows, you eat a little bit, you talk more shit with other people, you go to sleep and you drive to do it all again in the next place.